24,000 Letters to Congress Against Mass Surveillance

On Tuesday, "The Day We Fight Back," people all across the country sent letters to and called Congress demanding an end to the mass surveillance system. 24,000 letters have been sent to Congress through the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund's "End Mass Surveillance" campaign alone since it was launched.

This week Australian lawmaker Scott Ludlam endorsed this growing movement against mass surveillance in Parliament, and published an article in The Guardian, which was accompanied by a photo of the 'Thank You Ed Snowden' bus ads. Australia's pro-surveillance Attorney General George Brandis then launched a major attack denouncing Snowden, Ludlam, and the bus ads! All those who support the Surveillance State are feeling the heat.

The Thank You Ed Snowden bus ads in Washington, D.C., have had exactly the impact we hoped they would. As the NSA's lies and misdeeds continue to unravel, the ads have become symbols of the world's growing defiance of the Surveillance State.

During President Obama's speech on surveillance last month, CNN tweeted, "on cue the 'Thank you Snowden' bus passed Justice Dept." A few weeks earlier, the New York Times ran a large photo of the bus while reporting on a court ruling that bulk collection of telecommunications data was unconstitutional. Since the campaign was launched, photos of the bus have been run by Reuters, The Guardian, and in major newspapers across the United States and all around the world as far away as South Africa, Germany and Nepal.

Whenever there's a new twist in the NSA scandal that validates the actions of Edward Snowden — which happens just about every week now — the press and the public turn to the 'Thank You Ed Snowden campaign'. This includes not only the bus ads but also outreach, mass visibility projects and organizing such as the "End Mass Surveillance" letter-writing campaign to Congress.

The worldwide movement against mass surveillance is gaining great momentum. The 'Day We Fight Back' action, supported by civil liberties and privacy rights groups across the country, showed that. The government's own independent oversight board has come out strongly against the current NSA programs as unconstitutional and ineffective.